Our latest releases for the Retina API (2.3) and Retina Spark (2.1) see improvements to the algorithm converting texts to semantic fingerprints. As a result, the quality of semantic operations on text - keyword extraction, slicing or creation of a category filter - has improved and the comparison of text similarity delivers even more accurate results: try it out with our sandbox API! By the way, did you hear that Cortical.io's Semantic Folding approach helps improve the prediction of stock return correlations? This is the conclusion of an independent academic study conducted by researchers from Leiden, Ben-Gurion and Toulouse Universities.

Today, YouTube is updating its mobile app to provide a better'Home' experience. You'll now see larger thumbnails for recommended videos, which YouTube says is curated based on a deep neural network technology that looks at your search and watch patterns. YouTube says the update will display fewer recommendations, but show ones that should be more interesting to you based on your viewing history. The deep neural network is designed to detect patterns automatically, so it should keep up with your interests should they change week over week. Some of the biggest names in tech are coming to TNW Conference in Amsterdam this May.

Twitter has admitted that as many as 23 million (8.5%) of its user accounts are autonomous Twitterbots. Many are there to increase productivity, conduct research, or even have some fun. Yet many have been created with harmful intentions. In both cases, the bots have been known to behave with questionable ethics. Twitterbots, however, are minor specimens of Artificial Intelligence.

Alphabet Inc.'s Google unit, Ford Motor Co., the ride-sharing service Uber and two other companies said on Tuesday they are forming a coalition to push for federal action to help speed self-driving cars to market. Sweden-based Volvo Cars, which is owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., and Uber rival Lyft also are part of the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets. The group said in a statement it will "work with lawmakers, regulators and the public to realize the safety and societal benefits of self-driving vehicles." The coalition said David Strickland, the former top official of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the top U.S. auto safety agency that is writing new guidance on self-driving cars, will be the coalition's counsel and spokesman. "The best path for this innovation is to have one clear set of federal standards and the coalition will work with policymakers to find the right solutions that will facilitate the deployment of self-driving vehicles," Strickland said in the statement.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Google unit GOOGL.O, Ford Motor Co F.N, the ride-sharing service Uber [UBER.UL] and two other companies said on Tuesday they are forming a coalition to push for federal action to help speed self-driving cars to market. Sweden-based Volvo Cars, which is owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co GEELY.UL, and Uber rival Lyft also are part of the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets. The group said in a statement it will "work with lawmakers, regulators and the public to realize the safety and societal benefits of self-driving vehicles." The coalition said David Strickland, the former top official of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the top U.S. auto safety agency that is writing new guidance on self-driving cars, will be the coalition's counsel and spokesman. "The best path for this innovation is to have one clear set of federal standards and the coalition will work with policymakers to find the right solutions that will facilitate the deployment of self-driving vehicles," Strickland said in the statement.

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Plaza here is a strip mall with a pet-accessories store, a Thai restaurant and a yogurt shop, an unlikely venue to display the high-tech future. But one Saturday morning in March, Google did just that. A small convoy of its driverless cars cruised into the fading asphalt parking lot to give test drives – test rides, actually – to American mayors visiting Austin's annual South by Southwest tech-and-culture festival. Mayor Richard J. Berry of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was impressed with how the cars dodged pedestrians and fallen tree limbs. Sam Liccardo, mayor of San Jose, California, right in Google's backyard, was impressed that he got to see the cars at all. "These things are crawling all over my city" in tests, "but I had to come to Austin to ride in one," said Liccardo. "This is going to change cities."

The University of Florida held a fully technology-based sport: The world's first brain-controlled drone race. Using their brainwaves, 16 pilots flew drones through an indoor course ten yards long. Both drone-racing and brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are not new, but this is the first combination of the two, and it's an efficient method of introducing BCIs to the mainstream eye. BCI is a system that translates brain signals into commands comprehensible to output devices. Most often, this technology is used to allow individuals who are paralyzed to have control of prosthetic limbs.

In a bid to push forward with plans for self-driving cars, Alphabet's Google has teamed up with Ford and Uber to form a coalition to push for federal action. Sweden-based Volvo, which is owned by China's ZhejiangGeely Holding Group, and Uber rival Lyft also arepart of the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets. The group said in a statement it will'work with lawmakers, regulators and the public to realise the safety and societal benefits of self-driving vehicles.' In a bid to push forward with plans for self-driving cars, Alphabet's Google has teamed up with Ford and Uber to form a coalition to push for federal action. Sweden-based Volvo, which is owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, and Uber rival Lyft also are part of the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets The coalition said David Strickland will be the coalition's counseland spokesman.

Amy Ingram, the artificial intelligence personal assistant from startup X.ai, sounds remarkably like a real person. The company designed her to take on the mundane tasks of scheduling meetings and e-mailing about appointments. If a bot had access to your calendar and was cc-ed on correspondence, why couldn't it do the work for you? After she made her debut in 2014, users praised her "humanlike tone" and "eloquent manners." But what most people don't realize about this artificial intelligence is that it isn't totally artificial: Behind almost every e-mail is an actual human--someone like 24-year-old Willie Calvin. Calvin, who worked as an AI trainer for X.ai before he said he quit in October, was part of the reason Amy never tripped up, sending the sort of blind response that reveals she's a bot.

This post is authored by Ted Way, Program Manager, Data Group, Microsoft. We are excited to announce the private preview of Azure Machine Learning as part of the IOT Suite launch at Hannover Messe, the world's leading trade fair for industrial technology, in Microsoft Azure Germany. Customers interested in participating in the preview can email AzureGermany@microsoft.com. A core set of Azure ML features are available in Germany, with more in the process of being added. The German datacenter is a physically and logically separate allocation of Azure, one in which all customer data and required support systems reside in German datacenters.